California: a bellwether for anti-Christian bias in the United States

This month California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed Senate Bill 131 by Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose. This bill would have extended by another year the period in which sex abuse victims that were excluded from a 2003 law that extended the original statute of limitations on such claims.

Brown’s decision to veto this bill angered some of his Democratic colleagues in the legislature. However, Brown, a former Catholic seminarian, issued an unusual three-page veto announcement.

“Statutes of limitation reach back to Roman law and were specifically enshrined in the English common law by the Limitations Act of 1623,” Brown wrote. “Ever since, and in every state, including California, various limits have been imposed on the time when lawsuits may still be initiated. Even though valid and profoundly important claims are at stake, all jurisdictions have been seen fit to bar actions after a lapse of years.”

Brown went on to say that, “With the passage of time, evidence may be lost or disposed of, memories fade and witnesses move away or die.”

While this bill was being considered in the legislature, opponents complained that the bill was an attack on the Catholic Church and that it was a money grab by trial lawyers, especially since the bill excluded public agencies such as school districts.

Opponents have a strong case here, as can be seen by investigating cases of molestation by teachers in public schools.

One former Los Angeles Unified School District teacher, Mark Berndt, was charged with 23 counts of lewd acts upon children ranging in age from 6 to 10, some of which he fed his semen to as part of his “tasting games”. These acts allegedly occurred from 2005 to 2010. However, because the school district was told not to interfere with the criminal investigation, the district paid this alleged molester $40,000 to settle his appeal of his firing.

A Miramonte teacher, 49-year old Martin Springer, was fired in February of this year but pleaded not guilty to committing three lewd acts on a girl in 2009.

As a result of the recent Miramonte cases of alleged molestation the entire 120-member staff was replaced. However, the teachers union president was blasted by numerous parents when it was learned that teachers were simply reassigned rather than fired.

The latest news is that it is uncertain if any of the previous staff will return to Miramonte when the district completes its investigation into how Berndt’s alleged molestations went undetected for such a long time.

These are just a couple of public sector cases that you won’t see the trial lawyers go after, adding fuel to the fire over the continued attack upon the Catholic Church, and most importantly, par of a much bigger picture – the absolute transformation of our once-great nation.

This campaign against the Catholic Church by both atheists and secularists alike has been intensifying for some time now. And it is now expanding to Christian faith in general.

This anti-Catholic/Christian bias may be most notably found in public education. All across America public schools are not simply preventing religious monuments from being displayed on their property, they are actually taking actions against students who want to display their faith.

According to author, Michael J. Chapman, in order to build a “new” structure, the “old” must be torn down. And the Judeo-Christian foundation of Western Civilization must be bulldozed.

Mr. Chapman has defined three primary indoctrination methods used to undermine Christianity. The first is the censorship of America’s true heritage. The second is association propaganda – the linking of negative ideas or events with Christian principles, people, or groups. Finally, there is contextual redefinition, which changes the meaning of written text in order to support a pre-planned conclusion that is different from the original author’s intention.

Our Judeo/Christian foundations were even considered critical to those Founders who might not have, “…been the best source for moral self-government, liberty, justice, and establishing the proper function of government,” Chapman says.

Benjamin Franklin, for example, on June 27, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention called for prayer to begin each session of Congress.

Quoting the Gospels several times, Franklin reasoned, “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

A Founding Father of our republic, Noah Webster concurred in his History of the United States textbook for schools: “Our citizens should early understand the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion.”

However, today by contrast, textbooks appear to deliberately distort such history. Two tactics are generally used today. One – out and out censorship of anything that reminds students of our Judeo/Christian foundation. The second – dishonest association. That is, linking Christian principles with negative events in history. Claiming that in the name of Spanish Christian inhabitants subjugated 5 million Indians. Claiming that Christian missions are linked to millions of Indian dying from disease and being overworked. However, it was these missions protected Indians from both Spanish and slave-trading Indian tribes, and were often welcomed by the Indians.

Author Chapman states that when censorship or association propaganda are too obvious, publishers today simply change the meaning of texts to fit the desired outcome. For example, the popular Houghton Mifflin Social Studies textbook teaches, “When Jefferson wrote ‘all men’ are created equal, he really meant ‘all citizens’, women and blacks were not included.”

Better words to describe the current situation cannot be found than those of former US Department of Education official, Shirley McCune, in charge of national standards in 1989, when she was the keynote speaker at that year’s National Governor’s Association Conference in Wichita, Kansas. McCune explained, “What we’re into is the total transformation of society…what it means for education is that we no longer see the teaching of facts and information as the primary purpose of education…We must prepare children not for today’s society, but for a society that’s 20, 30, or 50 years down the road. That’s called anticipatory socialization, or the social change function of schools.”

Ring a bell? It should if you paid real attention to the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

Spero columnist John Mancino is a California-based entrepreneur and political activist.